In A Sentimental Journey, national identity is rigid while personal identity is fluid, a contrast that cautions against applying stereotypes to individuals. During his travels through France, the narrator Yorick is constantly looking out for and commenting on examples of French national character. He notes the particular phrases that French people use most often, criticizes the way French men flirt, and comments on French beggars’ “urbanity.” In one long passage, he criticizes French politeness and contrasts it with English authenticity. In all these instances, Yorick seems to affirm that individuals fall into certain rigid national types. Yet Yorick’s own personal identity is so fluid he almost lacks definition. As he says at one point, “There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I am.” He is constantly changing his mind: he criticizes the King of France and then toasts his health, berates the Franciscan monk and immediately regrets it, develops a sudden dislike for the hotel-master Monsieur Dessein and then curses himself for it, and so on. Yorick’s difficulty defining himself makes the reader question the rigid opinions of various national groups—can other people, whether French, English, or otherwise, be neatly categorized when Yorick himself cannot? Although A Sentimental Journey traffics in national stereotypes, it implicitly advises against applying them to individuals, who cannot be so easily defined.
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National vs. Personal Identity Quotes in A Sentimental Journey
When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and holding it airily and uncompress’d, looks round him, as if he sought for an object to share it with[.]
I have behaved very ill; said I within myself; but I have only just set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along.
I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national character more in these nonsensical minutiae, than in the most important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much alike, that I would not give nine-pence to chuse amongst them.
There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs, with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words. For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that when I walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to.
[T]here is a balance, said he, of good and bad every where; and nothing but the knowing it is so can emancipate one half of the world from the prepossessions which it holds against the other—that the advantage of travel, as it regarded sçavoir vivre, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught us mutual love.
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still slavery! said I—still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.
I think there is a fatality in it—I seldom go to the place I set out for.
There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I am—for there is scarce any body I cannot give a better account of than of myself; and I have often wish’d I could do it in a single word—and have an end of it.
But there is nothing unmixt in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh—and that the greatest they knew of, terminated in a general way, in little better than a convulsion.
